August 28, 2009

David Fox
Rivals.com College Football Staff Writer

FLORENCE, Ala. - Somewhere in the middle of spouting a succession of numbers, letters and code words, Terry Bowden felt like a coach again.

A week and a half ago, during North Alabama's first game-like scrimmage of the fall, the feeling of game preparation sunk in.

Normally, coaches script each offensive play during a scrimmage. Not for this practice, though. For the first time in more than a decade, Bowden stood on the sideline in a college stadium, play sheet in hand, making decisions and calling plays on the fly.

Bowden won't say what the first play was, and it's not that he doesn't remember.

"I've got a game coming up," he says.

When Bowden, 53, leads NCAA Division II powerhouse North Alabama onto the field Saturday at Southern Arkansas, he will end an 11-year sabbatical from coaching. The son of Florida State coach Bobby Bowden and a former coach at Auburn, he hasn't stood on a sideline as a coach since Oct. 18, 1998, when Auburn lost 24-3 at Florida.

That was in front of a crowd of 85,577. The attendance Saturday at Southern Arkansas' Wilkins Stadium won't come close to that; for one, the stadium capacity is 6,000. And Bowden won't face that crowd until after a seven-hour bus ride from UNA's campus in Florence to Southern Arkansas' in Magnolia, Ark.

No one is more excited about the game - even the bus ride - than Bowden. His first head-coaching job was at Salem (W.Va.) College, an NAIA school, so in some ways, he's come full circle.

Though the North Alabama campus is only a few blocks from Tuscaloosa and Tennessee streets in Florence, there is no comparison to the big-time college football Bowden last coached at Auburn. (Incidentally, South Auburn Street is about four miles from campus.)

"That's the easiest level [major-college football] to coach - if you can take the heat," Bowden says. "All you do is coach and maybe you recruit some."

Bowden has a few more responsibilities in Division II. A week before his first game, he is working the phones. It's the first week of classes and he's fielding calls about his players' class registration, financial aid, housing and meal plans.

He's calling donors for funds because he needs to buy shoulder pads big enough to fit offensive tackle Calvin Wilson, a 6-foot-6, 365-pound transfer from Southern Miss, and football pants big enough for 6-4, 345-pound guard Kyle Thornton, who walked-on at Texas before going to culinary school - yes, culinary school - and ending up at UNA.

He also has to find a way to stretch 36 scholarships to cover a roster of more than 100 players. About 25 players get a full ride, while others have partial scholarships or none at all.

"At Nebraska and some of those places, they have the million-dollar facilities," says starting quarterback Harrison Beck, who has played at Nebraska and N.C. State. "They don't have all that here, but they work really hard and they really love football."

Good times turn bad

Bowden resigned under pressure from Auburn midway through the 1998 season. Since then, he has been a college football analyst for Yahoo! Sports, an analyst for ABC's college football coverage and an analyst for Westwood One radio network, along with doing speaking engagements.

There were eight-win seasons in 1995 and '96, and a 10-win season in '97, which included a berth in the SEC championship game.

But it all came crashing down in 1998. The Tigers started 1-5 and Bowden resigned amid off-field problems, diminished recruiting and internal strife in the program.

It was a devastating end for a coach whose goal was to break Bear Bryant's career wins record, a mark that now has been surpassed by his father and Penn State's Joe Paterno.

"It crushed me," Bowden says. "I was unable to handle that degree of failure. ? Of all of [the Bowden brothers], I was the personality it would hurt the most. I was the 5-[foot-]5 guy that was proving something every minute."

He soured on coaching, so much so that he turned down an offer from Texas Tech before the 2000 season; the Red Raiders hired Mike Leach instead. Soon after, the job offers stopped coming. Bowden then had something of a midlife crisis on his 50th birthday.

"I looked in the mirror and said, 'Is this what I want to be for the rest of my life?' " he says. "I wanted to coach again, and then I really wanted to coach again.

"It was a very normal male thing to look in the mirror at age 50 and say I'm ready for some kind of life change."

WVU said no

Soon after he announced his intentions to get back into coaching, he interviewed with West Virginia, his alma mater, after Rich Rodriguez left for Michigan following the 2007 regular season. After seriously considering Bowden, the Mountaineers promoted interim coach Bill Stewart.

"If those guys who knew me my whole life, if they were cautious about hiring me because I had been out too long, maybe I needed to rethink things," he says. "They know me and they like me - and they did not hire me."

Still, Bowden never feared he wouldn't get some kind of coaching opportunity; there's always somewhere no one else will go, he said.

Ironically, that place isn't North Alabama. The school has a proud tradition in Division II, including three consecutive national titles from 1993-95 under Bobby Wallace. The Lions have ranked in the top six of the Division II coaches' poll in five of the past six seasons. Last season, coach Mark Hudspeth led North Alabama to a 12-2 record and a national semifinal appearance. Hudspeth, 30, then left the program to become wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator at Mississippi State.

Enter Bowden, whose first Lions team heads into the season ranked sixth in the Division II preseason coaches' poll.

Terry's younger brother, Jeff, formerly Florida State's offensive coordinator, has joined the redemption tour. He will serve as an unpaid volunteer assistant while Florida State continues to pay him $107,500 a year until 2012 as part of his agreement to leave Tallahassee.

And Terry's connections already have paid off for the Lions. Some Division II programs are built on transfers - junior college transfers or otherwise - and Bowden has 25 Division I transfers, including 23 from FBS programs. All but one will be eligible this season. Nine projected starters on offense and the entire starting secondary are transfers.

Beck will start at quarterback. Florida State transfer Preston Parker and Pittsburgh transfer T.J. Porter are starting wide receivers. Parker was perhaps FSU's best offensive player before he was dismissed after three arrests in two years. Porter left Pitt after running into legal trouble.

Those aren't the only familiar names. Backup defensive end Brandon Fanney started at linebacker last season for Alabama before he was dismissed from the team. Safety Quinton Andrews started for West Virginia last season; he, too, was dismissed. Wide receiver Mico McSwain made the SEC's All-Freshman team as a running back at Ole Miss in 2005 before dropping out of school in 2007. Defensive end Courtney Harris (a Miami transfer) and running back Marcus Sims (Florida State) were Rivals100 prospects out of high school who transferred looking for more playing time.

If all the new talent jells, Bowden could be in charge of a team that is a legitimate challenger for the Division II title. He knows that winning begets winning, and that if he wins enough, some bigger schools could come calling. While Bowden won't rule out a move back to major-college football, he says he won't leave to just be an assistant.

Besides, he says, "I could be very comfortable here."

David Fox is a national writer for Rivals.com. He can be reached at dfox@rivals.com.